This invention relates generally to railway wheels, axles and rails and has particular reference to an improved railway car wheelset having a novel wheel configuration.
For many years the track engaging surface of railway car wheels has been frusto-conical, the profile of the engaging surface being a straight line oblique to the horizontal in tangency with a convex rail radius. Wheels of this configuration, even when unworn, have a rolling speed upper limit that is considerably below that wanted and needed to make railroads competitive with trucking and flying. With worn wheels, rail misalignment and tight track curvatures, the upper speed limit is lowered further. Since correcting for rail misalignment and tight curvatures is a costly major undertaking, this means that the track engaging surfaces of the wheels must be machined frequently to compensate for wear and thereby attempt to operate as efficiently as possible.
The applicant's invention is a substantial departure from conventional frusto-conical car wheels, and the applicant is not aware of any prior art having a wheel configuration similar to his. U.S. Pat. Nos. 86,631 (Feb. 9, 1869) and 638,827 (Dec. 12, 1899) disclose substantially conventional frusto-conical car wheels. U.S. Pat. No. 10,714 (Mar. 28, 1854) to Wilder is the closest prior art known to the applicant in that it discloses a railway car wheelset wherein the track engaging surfaces of the wheels are curved. However, the wheels of U.S. Pat. No. 10,714 do not have a configuration like that of applicant's wheels nor can the patented wheelset function in the manner of applicant's wheelset, which manner of functioning is described hereinafter. In the Wilder patent, each wheel bears directly on the top of its rail and the contact point is at the point of the wheel's maximum convex radius, neither of which conditions exist in the present invention as will be explained.